With talk of Mamata Banerjee attending the swearing-in ceremonies of the Akali Dal-BJP government in Punjab and the Samajwadi Party regime in Uttar Pradesh setting off fresh speculation about a new political front,the Trinamool Congress leader today specified that she would not be attending either of the events due to the Budget session of the West Bengal Assembly starting March 15.

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The Chief Minister would instead be sending Rachpal Singh,state Tourism Minister,and Trinamool MP K D Singh to the March 14 swearing-in of Parkash Singh Badal,while the partys Sultan Ahmed,Union Minister of State for Tourism,would attend the March 15 event where Akhilesh Yadav will take oath in Lucknow.

The Budget session is going to start on March 15 with the Governors speech. The Chief Ministers presence in the Assembly during the Governors speech is expected, Trinamool Rajya Sabha MP and party general secretary Mukul Roy told The Indian Express.

Social interaction with strangers by those in partnerships is permissible,but obviously if things go beyond the normal boundaries of social courtesy,it would become immoral, Singhvi told reporters.

However,it was clearly a case of the left hand not knowing what the right was doing. The Congress had already been conveyed that Mamata would not be going for the ceremonies. She had a 40-minute-long meeting with Congress in-charge of West Bengal Shakeel Ahmed on Saturday and the latter was said to have left Kolkata very satisfied by Mamatas reiteration that she was with the UPA and had no intention to rock the boat at the Centre.

Later in the day,Singhvi had changed his tone. These (the invitations) are social courtesies which frequently happen in politics, he said. Either her going or not going should not be read as if pregnant with all kinds of meaning.